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SLEEP PROTECTS AGAINST CHILD OBESITY

Is sleep one of your
most important family values? A new University of Illinois study suggests that
it should be, reporting that more parental sleep is related to more child
sleep, which is related to decreased child obesity.

"Parents should
make being well rested a family value and a priority. Sleep routines in a
family affect all the members of the household, not just children; we know that
parents won't get a good night's sleep unless and until their preschool
children are sleeping," said Barbara H. Fiese, director of the U of I's
Family Resiliency Center and Pampered Chef Endowed Chair.

And the effects of
sleeplessness go beyond just being tired the next day. Studies show that moms,
dads, and their children are likely to gain weight as they lose sleep, she
said.

Fiese suggests
limiting your children's exposure to TV and other electronic devices to two
hours a day and turning them off a half-hour before bedtime (needless to say,
children should not have televisions in their bedrooms); spending some time in
a calming, predictable routine, such as giving the child a bath or reading
together; and making sure preschoolers are in bed in time to get the
recommended 10 hours of sleep a night.

Then adults should
follow a calming routine themselves. "We're learning more and more about
how important it is to unplug for a half-hour or so before we go to bed. At a
certain time, turn off your electronic devices -- even e-books -- and engage in
whatever soothing ritual helps you to relax enough to sleep," she said.

Although the mechanism
hasn't yet been identified, Fiese said that restorative sleep is thought to help
regulate our metabolism. Her recent study showed that sleep is a protective
factor in lowering the incidence of obesity in parents and being overweight in
preschool children.

In the study,
socioeconomic characteristics were assessed in relation to protective routines
and prevalence of being obese or overweight for 337 preschool children and
their parents. The routines assessed in parents included adequate sleep (over
seven hours) and family mealtime routine. The four protective routines assessed
in children were adequate sleep (10 or more hours per night), family mealtime
routine, limiting screen-viewing time to less than two hours a day, and not
having a bedroom TV.

The only significant
individual protective factor against obesity or overweight in children was
getting adequate sleep. Children who did not get enough sleep had a greater
risk for being overweight than children who engaged in at least three of the
protective routines regularly, even after controlling for parents' BMI and
socio-demographic characteristics, Fiese said.

But the researchers
also learned that the number of hours a parent sleeps is related to how much
sleep children are getting, so that a parent's sleep has an effect on the
likelihood that their children will be overweight or obese.

"We viewed how
long parents slept and how long children slept as part of a household routine
and found that they really did go together," she said.

In an earlier study,
Fiese followed families for a year and was surprised when parents reported that
their five- to seven-year-old children were going to bed as late as 11 p.m.
When she looked deeper into the reason for these late bedtimes, she found that parents
who worked late into the evening viewed those late-night hours with their
children as a special time.

"They described
cuddling on the couch, watching television, and the child falling asleep in his
parent's arms at 10 or 11 p.m. and being carried to bed. You can understand how
it happens, but that's too late for a child who has to get up and go to school
the next day," she noted.

She noted that
inadequate sleep is not just a problem for preschoolers but for elementary
school children and high school students whose brains are still developing.
Adults don't function well on inadequate sleep either, she noted.

Fiese sees obesity
intervention as a three-legged stool in which every member of the family is
able to eat well, play well, and sleep well.

"Paying attention
to those three pillars of health -- good nutrition, enough exercise, and
adequate sleep -- benefits everyone in the family," she said.

"Parent routines,
child routines, and family demographics associated with obesity in parents and
preschool-aged children" was published in the April 2014 issue of
Frontiers in Psychology. Blake L. Jones of Purdue University and Barbara H.
Fiese and the STRONG Kids Team of the University of Illinois co-authored the
article. The Illinois Council for Agriculture Research, the U of I Health and
Wellness Initiative, and USDA funded the study.

Members of the U of
I's Strong (Synergistic Theory and Research on Obesity and Nutrition Group)
Kids research team include Kristen Harrison, now of the University of Michigan,
and the U of I's Kelly Bost, Sharon Donovan, Brent McBride, Diana
Grigsby-Toussaint, Angela Wiley, and Margarita Teran-Garcia.

The University of
Illinois Family Resiliency Center is dedicated to advancing knowledge and
practices that strengthen families' abilities to meet life's challenges and
thrive.

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